Defying—

I can see that you’re enjoying the moment. Your eyes closed, your mouth curled at the corners in a subtle smile. We’re descending.

The background is Michelangelo—I note the anachronism of our gears, so with the pomp and circus let’s revise to Fellini, in splendid color-vision. It’s just us, though. The pilot has left. It would be heaven but instead of Rest, my heart is suddenly channeling Beethoven’s Ninth. A coda against the sky. It’s time: My clock has stopped.

“It won’t go,” I say weakly, oddly devoid of surprise, totally out of chime with the looming magnitude of demise.

Your lids fly open. You dive towards me like through water—which I fear more than anything else—and I become absurdly aware that this celestial sea is more or less the same, my eyes already drowning in defeat.

But my life is complete. I see you reaching out in exquisite slow motion. There in your face I recognize what I could never before bring myself to fully believe. For all my pathos, blinded by my conceit, misunderstanding your perfectionism; the trust implicit in your harsh critique.

You wrap your arm around this padded jumper as if it’s the single most important thing, mentally sweeping me off my feet, and I think to myself: Good God, will we go down together? Suddenly they’re closing the curtain on an act of Shakespearean suicide.

I am aware of only one word. I don’t remember who had the presence of mind to pull the other cord. The canopy unfolds and yanks us back to reality. I’ve lived. I’ve loved. I’m not afraid of flying.